


The Queen and the Piper

by Elennare



Category: Flower Fairies - Cicely Mary Barker
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22500859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/pseuds/Elennare
Summary: As the first pale light of dawn touches the marshy meadow, the music changes, and the dancing fairies take their leave.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	The Queen and the Piper

**Author's Note:**

> The fairies, for reference: [Queen of the Meadow](https://flowerfairies.com/queen-meadow-fairy/) and [Ragged Robin](https://flowerfairies.com/ragged-robin-fairy/).

As the first pale light of dawn touches the marshy meadow, the music changes, and the dancing fairies take their leave. Willow and Alder fly together to their trees beside the rippling stream that borders the meadow, each holding one of Willow-Catkin’s hands. Rush-grass and Cotton-grass skip away, ready to guide any lost wanderers who should stray into these lands, and Iris flits off to her yellow flowers.

At last, only two are left, the queen and the piper.

“Are you leaving?” she asks softly. It isn’t really a question, but he nods anyway, tucking his reed-pipes into his belt.

“You know you’re always welcome to stay.”

“Would you put your dragon-flies in cages?” he says lightly. “Clip your kingfishers’ wings? My flowers are not made for gardens, and I am not made for court.”

“But you enjoy playing for us...” she trails off.

“Of course!” he hastens to reassure her. “But I can’t make music if I’m always surrounded by people. I need to be alone, to hear the rustling of the wind in the reeds, the babbling of the streams, all the music of the marshland.”

She shakes her head in fond bemusement; she, born for the court, cannot really understand him, just as he cannot really understand her delight in it.

“Farewell then, Robin, till your return,” she says with a curtsey.

“Farewell, Queen of the Meadow,” he replies, bowing in return.

Sweeping his wings down, he jumps into the air, tattered rags fluttering about him. To his surprise, she follows him a second later, rising high over the marsh. Politely, he stops to wait for her.

“Be careful, little brother,” she whispers, and he smiles. He knows the fairies’ gossip that calls him a princeling, but thinks none really remember the truth. None, except they two.

“I will be, Meadowsweet,” he says, using the old familiar name. “Stay safe.”

They linger just a moment longer, smiling affectionately at each other, then turn and leave - the queen back to the frog-servants awaiting her, the piper away through the wetlands. As they do, the first rays of the rising sun catch Ragged Robin’s tousled locks and Meadowsweet’s fluffy hair, turning them both to shining gold.

**Author's Note:**

> What with their poems being one after the other, it gave me the idea that maybe Robin really is a prince - in which case he had to be related to the Queen of the Meadow!


End file.
